Comments on: More budget cuts to Russia’s space program https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/more-budget-cuts-to-russias-space-program/ Wed, 07 Sep 2016 15:36:11 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Robert Zimmerman https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/more-budget-cuts-to-russias-space-program/#comment-926817 Wed, 07 Sep 2016 15:36:11 +0000 http://behindtheblack.com/?p=41473#comment-926817 In reply to Localfluff.

Localfluff asked, “Do you know of anyone reporting independently on Europe’s space program?”

The answer is no. Space News (a part of Space.com) has one reporter, Peter de Selding, whose beat is focused on the European launch market, but he is not independent and he does not cover the science part.

]]> By: Localfluff https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/more-budget-cuts-to-russias-space-program/#comment-926807 Wed, 07 Sep 2016 14:45:07 +0000 http://behindtheblack.com/?p=41473#comment-926807 I understand it is slashed from $31 bn to “about” $8 bn. Minus 75% from last year’s proposal. But it will change when Russia together with Iran and Syria and maybe Oman, and now with the help of Turkey, occupies the Gulf states before the next US president is in office, and dictates the world oil price. Russia’s air force, aerospace and modern weapons systems is a perfect complement to the huge but a bit outdated armies in its allied Middle Eastern countries. Saudi Arabia spends more on the military, and on advanced weapons systems, than Russia, but their fiasko in Yemen reveals that they don’t know how to use them. There will be no effective resistance. The oil rich areas at the Persian Gulf are inhabited by a shia majority, maltreated by the rulers and supported by Iran (although they are arabs, not persians).

Off topic:
Bob, or any reader here, do you know of anyone reporting independently on Europe’s space program? I only find ESA’s own blogs and announcements, which is designed as propaganda for school children without any analysis or debate. I don’t know of anyone reporting on it like for example Anatoly Zak does on the Russian space program, and of course this and a few other blogs on NASA. I take it as an expression of the American exceptionalism, the US is very different from most other countries (maybe Canada and Australia is halfway like the US, europeans don’t have much independent journalism and certainly no kind of space culture, that’s just between the government, big industry and the science community).

]]>